An ambitious and engaging attempt to capture the elusive essence of a half-century of confrontation on the brink of the nuclear abyss. ``The cold war has been an extraordinary show to watch,'' Inglis (Education/Univ. of Warwick) says here, covering, conversationally and ingeniously, the full range of the spectacle- -from politics to science to art. Following a roughly chronological order, the author organizes his heavily anecdotal history into rotating sections of ``Biography,'' ``Events,'' and ``Fictions,'' beginning with a brief and dramatic ``biography'' of Frank Thompson, a quintessentially brave English intellectual killed as a result of Soviet indifference during the last days of WW II: ``The long fingers of the first moments of the cold war had reached out from Moscow and chilled Frank Thompson.'' Next come the ``events'' of ``The Casting of the Iron Curtain, 1945-47'' (Beria's reign of terror, George Kennan's design for American anti-Soviet policy, the birth of the atomic bomb), and then, several more ``events'' and a ``biography'' of Kennan later, Inglis's first ``fictions'': a lively meditation on ``righteousness'' and the movies and novels—The Magnificent Seven, Animal Farm, etc.—that ``taught that the American way of life, its fine independence and manly self-reliance, is the only meritorious way in a world of bad guys....'' Following this are ``events'' such as the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Poland's Solidarity, etc.; ``fictions'' dealing with ``loyalty and lying'' (spy films) and ``mistrust'' (All the President's Men, Gorky Park), etc.; and ``biographies'' of Freeman Dyson, Philip Agee, Joan Didion, etc. Finally, Inglis frames his patchwork tapestry in black, concluding that the ultimate engine for the cold war was ``prejudice, rigid fearfulness, ignorance, and superstition.'' A fresh and vigorous synthesis that humanizes the harsh march of history.
Pub Date: Nov. 25, 1991
ISBN: 0-465-01494-1
Page Count: 475
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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